Iris
by Mint.Creme.Oreo
Summary: [Hitomi x Hayabusa, just a smidgeon of romance] What happens when everyone's favorite Super Ninja catches a certain brunette crying in the hall? He tries to make her feel better, of course! [Takes place during DoA4, another oneshot]


Oh, what makes you think I own Tecmo, Team NINJA, or Dead or Alive this time?

Nothing?

Oh, then I don't own it, do I?

I would settle for owning my own Tina, though! -huggles a Tina plushie, then tosses it to the side.- Let's get on with this.

This is the Hitomi x Hayabusa fic I said I wanted to do. It's titled, "Iris". You figure out why. Cookies and DoA plushies to whoever gets it right. (Hint: It has almost nothing to do with this fic.)

* * *

Crying.

Distinctly, the sounds of someone crying; small, almost inaudible sniffles with every other tear, and the small 'swish' of skin against skin as she wiped at her eyes, first with her knuckles, then across with her wrist. Ryu Hayabusa didn't need to see that to know it. Obviously, someone was very upset.

"Oi." What a way to announce himself as he turned the corner.

Hitomi looked up, startled blue eyes meeting his green. "Hayabusa-sama!" She stammered, wiping at her eyes again.

Hitomi was probably the last person he'd expected to find crying, alone, in a corner. Even Ayane and Christie, he would've thought to seen first, but her?

"Hitomi-san?" Maybe his eyes were deceiving him (but he highly doubted that!) and it wasn't her. "Are you alright?" He asked softly, taking a few steps towards her. Ninjas weren't very good at comforting people (except for Kasumi, but she was the greatest shinobi of the Tenjin-Mugen clan, and a girl, so she didn't count), but her friends weren't around, and it would be wrong to just leave her.

"Yes. Please leave." She said, standing, and brushing her light brown hair from her eyes.

He blinked. "Huh?" His arms folded over his chest as he assumed the Super Ninja Pose (back straight, legs together, face stern).

"Please leave me alone." She repeated. "Or I'll just go… Sorry to disturb you…" She mumbled, then attempted to move by him.

His arm shot out, grabbing hers gently. " Hey, hey…" He tried to say it comfortingly, but she didn't have to be so hard to deal with. He was trying to help! "Stop. Look, tell me what's wrong?"

"It's none of your business." She said quietly, pulling away.

"Hitomi-san… Where are all your friends?" He asked. Tina, Lei-Fang, and Kasumi, he knew all cared about her enough to wonder, but they didn't think to ask?

"I told them to leave me alone, and they listened." She replied, stopping not too far from him. Her head was bowed; she'd started to cry again.

"Uh… That was pretty stupid of them, then." He decided, walking closer to her, until he could wrap an arm around her shoulders.

One of the hotel's maids walked by, giggling, but Hayabusa just gave her a light nod as if nothing was wrong. Hitomi's tear-stains were camouflaged by her blush.

"No it wasn't." She said defensively, trying to shrug him off.

He wrapped his other arm around her waist, pulling her into a clumsy hug. "Yes it was." He replied.

"Let me go…" She mumbled.

"Tell me what's wrong." He whispered in her ear.

"I said it was none of your business!" She hissed.

"I made it my business when I disturbed you." He pulled her tighter to his leather armor as she moved her trapped arms, trying to free herself.

"You wouldn't care… And there isn't anything you can do anyway." She turned her face away from him.

"Then tell me." He repeated. Persistent ninja, wasn't he?

"Fine." She sighed. "It's Ein…" She coughed, and lapsed into sobs again.

Ryu leaned his head atop hers. Ein… Who was that? Some boyfriend? Well, probably ex-boyfriend, now. "Ein?" He asked, confused.

"I think he also goes by Hayate." She mumbled through her sobs. "Yeah… Ayane and Kasumi call him that…"

"Uh, because that's his name." Ryu chuckled a little; of course, she would go by his German name! Cute…. Oh… yeah… he had to be comforting her. He abruptly stopped laughing.

"Whatever. There. Now you know. He dumped me." She said. He didn't exactly 'dump' her, persay… (because they'd never been dating) but what he had done was pretty evil…

"What did he do?" Before he thought bad about his best friend dumping a beautiful girl, he wanted to know the whole story. He knew he wasn't going to get it from Hayate (he never told him anything, and rarely ever, the whole truth), but Hitomi seemed honest… enough, anyways.

"Might as well tell you that too…" She grumbled, though not completely unwillingly. She had wanted to vent, but Kasumi was happy that Hayate and Ayane had stopped sending ninja after her, and Lei-Fang was happy that Jann Lee had finally accepted her challenge (though he let her win, and somehow that had turned into them going to the movies and making out; GO FIGURE), and Tina was gushing about her new movie. Happy friends usually weren't that sympathetic, and sad ones were worse (like Christie, who wasn't 'sad'. She was anti-social).

"_Ein!" Just as she'd found him at the third Dead or Alive Tournament, she'd found him at the fourth. Her face flushed at the sight of him. He didn't have any clue how much she'd missed him…_

_He looked over. "Oh. Hitomi-chan. Hello." That was all he said in reply, but she didn't care. He was talking to her again. _

_She rushed over to him, and threw her arms around his neck. "What's up?"_

"_You're choking me." He muttered, gently pulling her off._

"_Oh!" She blushed a little more. "Sorry!" She immediately de-tached._

"_It's alright." He rubbed his neck a little. "Did you want to talk to me… or… uh…. Something?"_

_She nodded; today she was supposed to tell him that she was in love with him. She was both anxious and nervous. "Ein-kun… I…" She started, but stopped quickly, and took a deep breath. Now that she was here, the words wouldn't come out._

"_I love you." She said after what seemed like an eternity of nothing but silence filling the space between them._

"_Oh." He hadn't quite expected that. "I'm sorry."_

"_What?" Was that a common reply when someone said that? "You're sorry?"_

"_Yes. I'm really sorry, Hitomi-chan." He apologized, and suddenly it clicked._

"_You don't feel the same way…" She whispered, looking from him to the floor. _

"_It's not that---" He started, but she cut him off._

"_But you don't."_

"_No, Hitomi, listen." He gently grabbed her shoulders. "I do, it's just…"_

"_Not that way." She finished for him._

_He sighed. "Yeah."_

"_Whatever." She shrugged his hands away, and began a very lonely walk back to her room, one she shared with Lei-Fang._

"_Hitomi!"_

"_Shut up, Ein!" Her anxiety was replaced with anger, and a deep jealousy. Of who ever he was dating (and he was dating someone, that was the only explanation of why he didn't want to be with her)._

_She found out the next day from Ayane why;_

_He was married. To some other female ninja from a different clan, or whatever, something she would never understand._

"Ayane-chan wasn't lying…" Ryu said gently.

"I know. I should've noticed the ring." She sobbed, her face coming to rest against his leather-covered shoulder. "I feel stupid…"

"You're not, so don't worry." He replied, smiling beneath the face mask he wore.

"Whatever."

Ryu cradled her even more tightly to his chest. This didn't seem like the same girl who'd taken care of Hayate after DoATEC left him for dead… or the same girl who befriended a runaway shinobi… or even the girl who was offered her own café in the new DoATEC Tri-Tower Hotel by the chair-woman herself. "It wasn't like he wanted to…"

"Then he should've said no to whoever his new wife is." She mumbled.

"It doesn't work that way Hitomi." He murmured into her hair.

"Yes it does." She retorted with a naïve edge.

"Whatever."

She laughed a little. "I thought ninja didn't say 'whatever'."

"Who told you that?" He pulled back a little, so he could look down at her.

"Ayane…"

"Kasumi says it all the time."

Hitomi laughed again, her tears were almost as if they'd never been there. "Okay."

"You have a nice laugh. Almost like a siren's…" Ryu said, nuzzling the top of her head. Her hair smelled like mango and sea salt.

"Sirens are evil." She replied.

"But you're not. That's why it's pretty." He agreed.

"Thanks…" She looked up, searching for his eyes. They were the only things, including his forehead, not covered by the face mask.

"Hitomi?" He blinked as their eyes locked again, but her gaze wasn't frightened. It was peaceful, the blue starting to remind him of the sea in Western paintings.

She slid her arms up around his neck, standing on tiptoe to push her lips against his, trying to find them through the leather covering his. One of his hands moved after the slight shock wore off, and pulled it down. The other moved to the back of her neck, winding through her arms and then into her hair. He held her there for a few moments, until his lips had enough sense to part.

"Ryu…" She gently pulled away, using his first name for the first time. "Thanks."

His arms dropped. He was surprised she even knew it (and he was going to blame it on Kasumi). "For what?"

"Everything." She waved a little bit as she went back to her room.

"I wonder what that was about…" Jann Lee mumbled, looking from the girl to the ninja as he and Lei-Fang walked down the hall, to the same room.

"Oh, I'll find out!" She chirped. She had planned on cheering Hitomi up herself…. But it looked like everyone's favorite Super Ninja had beaten her to it…

* * *

Eh, I see no real point in continuing this. It makes a nice little Hitomi x Hayabusa oneshot. Secretly, the idea of them getting together is one of my favorites in the DoA universe. Hitomi's such a sweet, nice little character... And sooo versatile... I use her in... ALL of my DoA fics. -checks them.- Yeah, she stars in them all.

However, if you did notice something odd, it's because I had originally thought about making this a first chapter to a fic about how DoA 4 should've been, and then got too lazy to edit it after I decided it would just be one of my many one-shots. Please Review.


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